Let's figure out 6.84, shall we?

Ok boys.
We've all had our fun thinking about the new patch. We've all thought about buying Aghs on Naix or whatever, but let's be serious for a minute. Sure there's a lot of fun stuff to mess around, everybody is going to think "finally there's new possibilities and a larger hero pool opening up in competitive" like people did in 6.83. It's gonna be fun for 2 weeks.

And then...

It's going to be the cold shower of the return to reality. People are going to start playing the same heroes over and over again simply because sure dota is balanced by the mighty Frog but some heroes are more balanced than others :)

So let's gain some time. What's the new broken stuff? What are the new MMR farm heroes? What are the heroes that you're going to see over and over and over until you ask for forgiveness. What are the new heroes that you'll feel dirty simply for picking?

I put the heroes who underwent significant changes in the poll. I didn't put heroes that have become playable like Gyro or Sven, simply because they got small buffs. But I'm really talking about the ******** level of pub-insta-winning picks here.

So, make your choices. And most importantly...explain why.

My own choice is Leshrac. 6.84 Lesh is complete ********. Not only does Lightning Storm now set up Split Earth PERFECTLY with the additional slow meaning that his stun is 100% reliable...but, well...Octarine Core replaces Bloodstone perfectly, and lifestealing Lesh is...pretty freaking broken :)
Lesh is that kind of hero that I've been wondering for a long time "One more buff and he's in OP territory". Now...Icefrog's done it. Lifestealing Lesh with reliable stun. Done. Was nice knowing you dota.
So be ready to see pubstomping Leshs...the most ridiculous part is that even a support Lesh can have that kind of fun seeing how fast the hero farms. One item. Get ONE freaking item and the rape train begins.

Second in line are the good old Troll/Storm who actually weren't nerfed at all (those 'nerfs' that do nothing are actually sponsored by Troll pickers and Storm pickers to confuse you. We had the same thing with Void some time ago so I'm onto you). And honorable mention to Rat Druid.

Notes :
- Lina only got her Aghs nerfed and Euls nerfed. But you can simply rush a shadowblade and play right-click ganking Lina, and you still have all the same hero as 6.83...except that you get more gold for each kill.
- Shadow Fiend was buffed indirectly by making Shadow Blade a late game item (SB probably better than Euls now...both items do the same thing after all, ganking single targets), and by giving better 6-slot scaling with Moon shard since he always gets 6-slotted early.
- Slark got buffed indirectly with silver edge and moon shard too : far better 6-slot inventory with more HP, the silver edge active which is stupidly good in late game, and more attack speed. And we all know how good attack speed and HP are on Slark with that ridiculous passive.
- For Slashlencer and Outerspace Decimator, first they got OK buffs, but...120 FREE ATTACK SPEED FOR ONLY 4K GOLD! This changes everything. There were no attack speed items for INT carries before, cause Mjollnir didn't stack with orbs. Now you can moonstone yourself (and evolve your Pokemon) and then buy another moonstone. 180 attack speed. OP.
(btw BKB-piercing Enchantress with her absurd attack range maybe has her place too...I'll just have to adjust seeing her as a carry...which she is now.)

Storm Spirit is absolutely the same hero. 5 ms is nothing and he has lightning remnant for vision. He still will be one of the most picked heroes in pubs.

My opinion is that the new broken guy will be... outworld devourer!
With the octarine core he will "lifesteal" like crazy, because of Arcane Orb(also insta-full hp if ulting right hero). The fact that his ult applies Astral Imprisonment to everyone effected if Agh's is bought... this is like:you ult 5 ppl-you gain 50-60 int(omg if he gets refresher-over 100 int >.>).
If he has enough time he can just stack moon shards, get some more int, bkb and it is gg :/

I don't see why people are so negative about the idea of a meta existing. That's how almost all games like this work, you get a meta forming of the better heroes. It's natural.

Zeus is gonna to be really scary. Like, the amount of AOE magic damage he deals in an extended fight is terrifying. The issue is he was really squishy, but now you've got a cooldown reducer/magic life steal, and thus you are suddenly really tanky. And unlike Lesh, he's actually a really good hero already. So this item will probably be great on him.

Naga Siren will probably see an increase in play competitively if nowhere else because of a combination of things I've listed elsewhere.

Also what were the Slark and Shadow Fiend buffs? Neither got anything directly, so what were the indirects? SF technically recieved a nerf due to the Eul's change.

Slark is so terrifying now actually, I'm glad you mentioned that.

Naga Siren support got buffed, carry goes unchanged. Make Alchemist farm you a scepter tho.

Troll Warlord is still OP as hell. He gets my vote.

The entire "Break" idea is....broken? man thats some next level punning icefrog. Being able to just DISABLE PASSIVES is crazy! Having trouble killing Bristleback? NO NEED JUST TANK AWAY HIS TANKY ABILITY WITH AN ITEM THAT IS CUSTOM MADE FOR SLARK WHO WAS ALREADY STRONG. sorry. im just dreading getting wrecked by slark even more now.

*Sees Storm Spirit "Nerfs"*
*Life drains from face*
*starts sobbing*
*Starts vomiting*
*Starts punching screen*
*Uses satanic ritual to curse Icefraud*

I called it, death pony is the new ****!!!
Lesh is love, lesh is life.

Also stop talking out of your *** with the urmagurd storm so broken hero BS.
A month or 2 ago everyone was also whining about slark all the time because he had a short popularity spike in pro dota due go many CIS games and after that everyone also stopped complaining for the most part. Apart from asking for that leash nerf.

I'm not sure who the most OP hero of this patch is. Troll barely got nerfed, but lots of subtle nerfs, mainly due to adding more things to counter him, and making the game less rice-y. Slark with Silver Edge seems like a scary prospect however, as well as Moon Shard on certain heroes.


But I expect the pub scene to be dominated by Zeus. I'm guessing ~58% winrate for him.
And Leshrac will probably jump quite a bit too due to this huge buff.
But countering them is not tough. Get a cloak and pipe and you're good.

You missed Glimmer Cape.

Okay, so indeed there are more ways to deal with Troll than there used to be, mainly due to the new Break ability and the fact that it's pretty easy to come around. Break disables his bash, and his Fervor. That's actually really good, since his 2 passives are the OP part about him.

So now you can jump on Troll with your Slark, and remove any way he has to fight back because he no longer has his passives and he deals 40% less damage. So NOW you can manfight Troll. Well...unless he has BKB because apparently BKB removes it (does BKB remove it completely? Test client guys I'm asking you), in which case you have to kite his BKB.

So indeed maybe Troll got a very slight nerf. Don't worry Troll pickers he's still broken. However this means that Slark got buffed really hard, since he's maybe the best Troll counter in the game now :)

Also good news : Doom is really good against Troll now, since Doom FINALLY disables Fervor. And his bash, and his 2 actives. Besides he's a really good carrier for silver edge as well. Since Doom screws over Troll and Storm...I think I'm going to play some Doom. **** these heroes.